Re: AIS: HIST: REF: Early Checklists

As is often the case on historical data I find myself
in full agreement with what Ahner has to say.

The 1939 checklist is a very fine document and needs
to be put in the perspective of its time. Early in The
AIS history Iris shows were different than today.
Today we judge the exhibitor not the Iris. But when
the 39 chceklist was being created Iris shows lumped
all Iris of a certain color into one class. For
example dark blue. Then the best dark blue Iris was
chosen at the show. The 39 checklist was not designed
to describe the Iris but to place in in the proper
class for the show. This was often difficult because
many Iris fell in between color classes. A more modern
Iris would be a shew-in for whatever class it was
placed. Therefore the biggest arguments came over what
color class should it be assigned. The 39 chceklist
could act as the arbiter of this decision. So defining
the color class was more important than providing a
description. 

The 39 checklist was also the first illustrated
checklist. If there was a picture extant in the
literature the 39 checklist would refer you to that
reference and also noted whether it was in black and
white or color.

It also referenced descriptions that appeared in the
literature. All in all it provided much more
information than we get today, even though you may
need a library at your disposal.


--- ChatOWhitehall@aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 8/1/2007 1:25:40 PM Eastern
> Daylight Time,  
> jijones@usjoneses.com writes:
> 
> The  way  
> information is interpreted in the 1939 Check List is
> really  arcane.  
> 
> 
> 
> I do not find it so.  Some of the small
> strangenesses in it bother me,  
> because I believe they are the result of someone
> fiddling around with the truth,  
> but I find the document worthy none the less, and
> absolutely indispensible to  
> one who will learn to use it, and remember to think
> for one's  self. 
>  
> The 1939 Check List is an intricate document. I find
> that using  it requires 
> that one give the question at hand one's full 
> attention. It is a tool, like 
> an atlas, or logrithmic tables. or any  other
> technical reference document of 
> its sort, and one must learn to  use it well and
> skillfully. I find this 
> requires patience, and a  good deal of practice. One
> must absolutely read the front 
> matter of  the book carefully, and reread it often.
> One must also respect the 
> tool's  limitations. 
>  
> One place people get in trouble, other than not
> getting familiar with the  
> material in the front which introduces the book and
> tells you how to use  it, is 
> in failing to remember that the book is really a
> taxonomic  document: It is a 
> book of Iris names, not of irises as such. Like a
> phone book  is not really 
> about people. More expressly, it is a record of the
> first  appearance, or 
> publication, of unique Iris names in relation to
> unique Iris  cultivars. It is 
> about words, then, and about words as records  of
> acts of naming. 
>  
> People also often run aground because they don't
> understand that  there may 
> be, and often are, relationships between entries. 
> Entries impact each other, 
> earlier determining later, and later impacting 
> earlier, so that the record 
> changes over time. 
>  
> It must be larned, and remembered that Early and
> Late, and  Intermediate and 
> Dwarf, to cite but two instances, do not mean the
> same thing in  the 1939 
> Check List as they mean today.  
>  
> As for the color chart, it was never supposed to do
> anything other  than 
> indicate broad color patterns and I find it does
> that very well. Here  again, one 
> must learn to use it, and respect its limitations.
>  
> For those needing more intricate descriptions, AIS
> published elaborate  
> descriptions written by Robert Sturtevant  in the
> Bulletin at several  intervals 
> through the 1920s and 1930s. These were the basis of
> the descriptions  in 
> Rainbow Fragments by Shull. Period catalog
> descriptions--and period  
> photographs--are a real trap, of course, because the
> description is unlikely to  mention less 
> agreeable features and it was hardly unusual for
> commercial sources  to use 
> the same photograph in several catalogs to represent
> different  cultivars. 
> Caveat emptor holds for the responsible scholar,
> too. 
>  
> I have heard people vent frustration about these
> issues for  years.  
> Accordingly, as I said, I am working on a check list
>  of selected pre WWW2 bearded 
> cultivars having all the information you need,  and
> none of the stuff you don't 
> want, with full  descriptions,  where reliable
> information along that line is 
> available. 
>  
> Cordially,
>  
> Anner Whitehead
> Richmond VA USA 
> 
> 
> 
> ************************************** Get a sneak
> peek of the all-new AOL at 
> http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour
> 
>
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